It’s the average, or is it not?

There’s a huge hype about averages these times. I’d say it’s, at least partly, because of the huge amount of data all around us that can be reduced to much smaller amounts by averaging them out (whatta nice thing that must be? uhm, whatever, you get the point).

The last two days were extremely cold for this time of the year. It’s about 15 degrees celsius, while it should be at least 20+, in other words: It’s a frickin cold summer right now. Weather’s all crazy the last months. There are some consecutive days of bright sunshiny 30-degree-weather, followed by scary bad ass thunderstorms and days like now, up to 10 degrees below expected temparatures.

As far as my little brain can guess I have to come to the conclusion that our climate changes.

However experts keep telling us that it doesn’t. The average temparature still is the same. And while, by chance, they are a 100% right with that there still are recognizable changes.

So what does that tell us?

It’s pretty easy: Averages only tell you something if they change. If an average of something changes you can tell that the thing itself changed. Easy enough. But if the average stays the same you don’t know nothing about what happened or if something happened at all.

Let me show you with a really easy example: A row of 4 numbers.

1 / 1 / 1 / 1 – average: 1

now if that average changes it’s pretty obvious something changed. But what about that:

2 / 0 / 2 / 0 – average: 1

3 / -1 / 3 / -1 – average: 1

4 / 0 / 0 / 0 – average: 1

Averages can really only be used in this one singular way:

If the average of something changes, the thing itself changed.

If anyone ever argues that something didn’t change (climate) because the average (temperature, rain, …) didn’t change you better find yourself a new expert.